A LOGICAL PISQUISITIQN ON EXAI,TEp GICSHJS. 



stood. These " high and lofty ones" do not use their learning to 

 illustrate thejr subject, but their subject to illustrate their learning : 

 consequently, they continually choose some strange paradox to 

 make good ; which they so bury in quotations and far-fetched 

 reasons, that the reader at last knows not what to think of the matter 

 in question, nor indeed of any thing else : they so confound all ideas 

 of past and present, wrong and right. But, for my part, I spare my 

 reader, and had much rather he should suspect my learning than 

 my sense. The public, if it considered things rightly, could never 

 sufficiently honour him who has modesty enough to confine his essay 

 within the limits of sixteen pages, demy octavo, or, in other words, to 

 the size of a pamphlet, did they know how easy it is for a well-read 

 and elevated, garretteer to pour an inundation of learning on them 

 from his library, to mock their ears and surprise their judgments by 

 great names, and to present them with not only his waking but like- 

 wise his sleeping thoughts : and, on the other hand, experience the 

 trouble of confining himself within proper bounds, and cutting off all 

 crude, all unnecessary, all false thoughts, which to him would be 

 little less than cutting off a limb ; they would own that if he were 

 not a good, he was at least a merciful author. But, alas ! it is this 

 endeavour that ruins my brother authors, and perhaps seriously 

 injures me : we make no sufficient figure in a library, but are 

 suffered to lie in the dust, trampled on, and used with the utmost 

 contempt, till our \eryfragments are at last annihilated. While the 

 size of larger books is their security, which are protected from ruin 

 by the strength of the binding, not the strength of the reasoning. 

 They encumber the land, like some huge Gothic buildings that are 

 permitted to stand not for their peculiar beauty or venerable appear- 

 ance, but because it would cost more than they were worth to 

 destroy them. But I see I have unintentionally digressed, which, 

 nevertheless, is not only pardonable, but perhaps no fault in an essay. 

 And now, with all the satisfaction and literary pride conceivable, I 

 return once again to my garret. 



Though I accused the age, in the beginning of this discourse, of 

 being insensible of the advantages of a garret, yet with gratification 

 I observe, 'tis a fault they are every day improving upon : several of 

 our nobility, those famous patrons of arts, who burn with an incre- 

 dible love to all good letters, have at length discovered the " mistake" 

 the world has for so long a time lain under. They imagined afore- 

 time, that learning could not be better encouraged, than by loading 

 its professors with favours, presents, and pensions, &c. ; and thus 

 they smothered the fire of genius with too much fuel. But now they 

 have opened their eyes, and to make amepds for their former error, 

 take care to keep the learned, like hawks, keen for the " game," by 

 not overfeeding them. 'Twas not till now, that Hprace's advice to 

 Augustus, came to be understood, where he recommends his great, 

 patron 



Vatibus addere Colour." 



Which being translated, means to give a spur to poets ; and what 

 " spur" can, in the corpulent name of capon-lined John Bull, drive 



